Ten years after his final appearance on British TV, Ricky Gervais's best-loved and, let's face it, best character, David Brent, is to return as part of this year's Comic Relief. Gervais is reprising the role for The Office Revisited on 15 March. "I thought it was time to revisit my most famous comedy creation to find out what he's been up to for the last decade," Gervais told the Sun.

The new episode finds the former manager of paper merchant Wernham Hogg working as a talent manager in the music industry. "He is passing on his wisdom to younger would-be rock stars," says Gervais. "Well, really he is trying to worm his way back into rock'n'roll." Co-stars in the new edition include fellow standups Doc Brown and Tom Basden. Meanwhile, Gervais's new comedy-drama, Derek, has had its second series green-lit by Channel 4.

The BBC Trust has ruled that "smutty, seaside postcard" humour is acceptable before the watershed – but references to tantric sex are a no-no. In a judgment that suggests British attitudes to humour – and sex – have evolved little in the past 50 years, the director of the trust's editorial complaints unit – adjudicating on an episode of the sketch show Watson and Oliver – pronounced terms such as "jugs", "melons" and "tits on a plate" to be "harmless [and] casual". The pre-watershed credentials, however, of a sketch about Playboy bunnies and of another featuring a Bond girl called "Jenny Talfrenzy" were adjudged to be "debatable".

The ruling stated, "the committee appreciated that the BBC had a long record of using cheeky sexual innuendos with humour and without causing offence in TV and radio comedy. Indeed, many of the BBC's traditional comedies relied on it."

It's been a bad week for Joan Rivers – or a good one, if notoriety is her game. First, she got in trouble for a gag about the fashion model Heidi Klum: "The last time a German looked this hot was when they were pushing Jews into the ovens." The Anti-Defamation League demanded an apology: "This remark is so vulgar and offensive to Jews and Holocaust survivors, and indeed to all Americans, that we cannot believe it made it to the airwaves." Rivers was unrepentant: "It's a joke. This is the way I remind people about the Holocaust … My husband lost his entire family in the Holocaust, so let's just start with that." No such get-out clause with Joan's second howler, a wisecrack on the David Letterman show about the singer Adele's weight: "What is her song, Rolling in the Deep? She should add 'fried chicken'." The audience booed, complaints were lodged – and comedian Adam Hills leapt to the crooner's defence.

Controversy of the week

Has Hat Trick done the dirty on the BBC? Last week Laughing Stock reported on a new ITV panel show hosted by Jason Manford entitled Good News, Bad News – and the hawk-eyed among you will have spotted a resemblance between the new format and that hardy perennial, Have I Got News for You? Now the BBC has reportedly cried foul – primarily because the new Manford show is produced by the same company that brings HIGNFY to the Beeb.

The new show, for which a pilot was filmed last week, sees three comedy or light entertainment guests discussing the week's events "in a series of hilarious rounds". Guests in the pilot included Frank Skinner and Edinburgh Best Newcomer 2010 Roisin Conaty. The Daily Mail has now quoted "a BBC source" as saying, "it's understandable that ITV wants to try and make its own version of HIGNFY. But it's a bit of a low blow that Hat Trick has helped them do so. They're an indie producer so there are no rules against it, but it feels wrong and hasn't gone down well here." Hat Trick supremo Jimmy Mulville was also quoted in the article, claiming that Good News, Bad News was "significantly different" from the company's flagship show, and denying any deliberate overlap. "People would say I'd lost my mind if I was going to make a show that would damage Have I Got News For You. It would be a ridiculous thing to do."

It's not as simple as saying all rape jokes aren't funny. It's the intent behind some of them. [Jerry] Sadowitz is deliberately offensive, but, in his own words, what he does isn't, "something terrible, which is to take brutal subject matter and make it cosy for a large audience." A comedian like Sadowitz (or Silverman, who has made a few rape jokes) wants you to be uncomfortable with the humour, and the truth behind the joke… Some less talented comedians, like Jimmy Carr, just want you to laugh at the subject. Gang rape, ha ha. No subtext, just puerile sniggering and a punchline.

You are comparing two quite niche offensive comedians with the remarks made by a presenter of the most mainstream awards event in existence… You might reasonably expect not to get this sort of thing at the Oscars.

I thought it was tasteless and not at all funny. Dead cats? Random netball matches? Life coaches? What have they got to do with coming out or being gay? I came out more than 30 years ago and I saw nothing of my situation then or now in the programme. Shallow and so called "smart" humour. A big disappointment.

I'd argue that's the point. Dead cats, netball matches, and life coaches have, indeed, nothing to do with being gay. There's a reason why this programme, about a woman who is still closeted to her parents, is called Heading Out, not Coming Out. Sara is a woman whose main characteristic is not the fact that she's the 'gay one', even if the character herself sometimes thinks that: no other character in her life gives a damn.